Lost: Via Domus Review

*** Spoiler Alert ***

I decided to play Lost: Via Domus because I'm a fan of the Lost and I thought it might give some cool back story stuff. I'm glad I only rented it because I beat the whole thing in around 4 hours without much effort. It is suppose to be a mystery style game where to try to remember your past and learn about the island but really your just walking through a story with very little mystery solving to do.

I'm pretty disappointed with the game. Besides being ridiculously short there was very little you do in the game besides walk from one area to another and talk to people. There are a few puzzles you have to solve to unlock areas, but mostly they are pretty simple. Additionally, there were only a few things you actually learn about the show. The first is that the shark that was seen during the episode where a few people try to escape the island on the raft turns out to be a mechanical shark. The other thing you find out is that the Swan Station, where Desmond was pushing the button all that time, did have a way to get behind the concrete sealed walls into the area where the electromagnetic fields come from. They show what is back there but I have no idea what it was suppose to be. It was some big metallic thing. They also show to get off the island by boat you have to temporarily disable the device so you can follow a compass setting like they told Michael and Walt to do without it interfering with the compass. Not really that big a deal.

The game leads you up to helping the others capture Jack and letting you off the island so you can prove that you did not kill your girlfriend (you have photos of the event as you;re a photographer). However, when you go to betray Jack Kate does the usual follow along and gets caught so you blow up some dynamite and help them both escape. You then run to the beach and get on the boat before the Others can stop you since you've already deactivate the electromagnetic field. As you get n the boat Locke helps cover your back and escape. He admits he doesn't want to leave the island but your path seems to be to head home. The game then cuts to the final cut scene and you're back on the beach again just like how the game starts, but this time your girlfriend comes running over to help you. What?! First off she was dead. Second, how did you go back in time and gt back to the plane crash again after escaping the island? The ending doesn't answer any of these things. It just ends with her coming over to help you up with the plane crashed in the background. This might be the worst game ending ever. I did not expect to get a lot an answers since Lost never gives any, but why not just end the game with getting on the boat?

If you're a fan of lost and have 4 or 5 hours to waste the game has a few little things you can enjoy about the back story of the show and it has really easy achievements. However, the ending sucks and some of the voice acting is not very good. Overall I'd not recommend playing this game unless you're a die hard Lost fan and a huge achievement whore.

Joost Invite Update

When I opened my offer to send Joost invites to anyone who requests them I never thought I'd get over 500 of them, but at this rate I'll hit 500 before the end of the week. I'm still sending out Joost invites to anyone who wants them so if you're interested in checking out the Joost Beta just leave a comment with what email address you want me to send it too. If you'd like a little more information about Joost check out my review here.

Joost Invites

I've been playing with Joost on and off for over a month now and I'm still enjoying it. I'm still waiting for more channels, but I don't really expect them to be added until the Beta ends. I did notice today that I can now send unlimited invites so if anyone else wants an invite let me know. I've already sent invites to everyone who had previously requested them in the comments on my original review. I'm pretty excited that they are giving those of us in the Beta unlimited invites because since Joost is a peer-to-peer based program the more people using it the faster it should run. I don't really notice a lot of buffering times as it is, but faster is always better. If you're in the Joost Beta as well let me know how you like it.

[Update] Wow. There are a lot of people interested in getting a Joost Invite. I still have plenty more to send so keep the requests coming. Due to the number of invite requests I've been getting I've made a change to comment moderation. I will be approving comments as I send the invites for them. Now, when you see your comment is posted I will have also sent you the invite for Joost as well. Hope that makes it a little easier for everyone. I'll continue to try and send out Joost Invites as soon as I receive the requests.

Battlestar Galactica Season 3 Review

*** Spoiler Alert ***

Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica is really split into four parts. For the first portion of the season the remnants of the human race are mostly on New Caprica trying to free themselves from Cylon oppression. There are a few humans on the fleet's ships who got away and are trying to work out a way to free the rest of the race, but this is only a handful of people. This part of the season lasted for only 4 episodes, but during those 4 hours of television there were some intense moments.

• Tigh's wife, Ellen, gets him freed from the detention center by sleeping with one of the Cylons and keeps him freed by providing them information about the resistance. When Tigh finds out he kills for being a collaborator by poisoning her.
• Baltar is "president" but is forced at gun point to sign the death warrants for over 100 people. The resistance finds out and is able to save the people from the firing squad.
• Sharon is reinstated as an officer by Admiral Adama and sent to the planet to help prepare the resistance for the return of the fleet and their escape from the planet.
• Kara is held by the Cylons and told that they used her eggs to make a baby. When Adama and the fleet return she is able to escape with Ander's help only to find out it is not her child at all.
• In their escape from the planet Sharon's baby, Hera, is found and taken by the Cylons.
• The return of the fleet was one of the best space fights the show has had. They jump Galactica strait into the planets atmosphere , release all the vipers and then jump into orbit. Lee, who was suppose to stay with the Pegasis and guard the rest of the fleet, takes the Pegasis into the fight just in time to save Galactica, but they loose the ship in the process.
  

As you can see there was a lot that happened in the first part of the season. The episodes moved at a quick pace and they cap off this porting of the season by escaping the planet with around 8000 less people then they originally started the colony there with. Many were killed or captured during the 4 months they were on the planet under Cylon control, but many others dies in the escape.

The second portion of the season show the various members of the fleet trying to recover from their time on New Caprica. During these 6 episodes there is a lot of episodes where they try to display the different character's responses to the time on the planet. Even though President Roslyn issues a pardon to everyone for anything that happened during the occupation some of the members of the resistance decided to take matters into their own hands and kill the worst of the collaberators. They finally stop when they are about to kill Gaeta and then find out he was their contact on the inside who was feeding them information. The humans discover that the Cylons are suseptible to disease but in the end don't use biological weapons against them when they could have easily killed the enter Cylon poulation. During this section of the season we also learn that it was the humans who first broke the treaty they had with the Cylons by crossing the boarder they had originally setup with them. Additionally, it was Adama who was in charge of this mission that caused the Cylons to retaliate and nuke all 12 colonies.

The third portion of the season occurs on an alge planet that the humans are harvesting for food. Tyrol finds a temple on the planet that they think points the way to Earth. The Cylons also find the planet and there is a standoff between them and the humans. The humans can't get off the planet and the Cylons can't get on it without coming under fire from the other. Sharon finds out that Hera is still alive on the Cylon ships and has Helo, her husband, kill her so she can resurrect and get Hera. She does succeed in getting Hera with the help of Six. A single Cylon ship makes it to the planet with a copy of D'Anna and Baltar on it and a few of the walking toasters. On Galactica, Gaeta realize a star in the area is about to explode. The humans on the planet are able to capture Baltar and get off the planet just in time to escape before the whole place is incinerated by the start exploding. As a result they realize they know at least part of the path to Earth. This portion of the season is only two episodes long, but it marks a critical turning point in the season. The humans now have the start to a pathway to Earth.

The last 8 episodes of the season deal with the lead up to Baltar's trial for treason. There are a few filler episodes in this section, in my opinion, that did not add a lot to the overall story, but I still enjoyed watching all of them. As Baltar's trial approaches, Lee joins the defense for Baltar after getting in trouble and being assigned as body guard for Baltar's lawyer. Lee gets in a fight with his father and steps down/is discharged from his role in the military. He proves to be a valuable asset to Baltar's defense when he figures out that President Roslin is taking drugs.It turns out this is because her cancer has returned. In the end Baltar is acquitted mostly because of Lee's testimony. As the final episode ends the humans make it to the location they found out about on the alge planet only to find the Cylons there as well. The season ends as the battle is about to begin.

One underlying theme through out the whole season was with Baltar trying to determine who the other 5 Cylon models are and if he is one of them or not. In the final episode of the season we find out who four of the five are. They are Tigh, Anders, Tyrol and Tory (President Roslin's assistant). They all find out at the same time that they are Cylons when they follow some strange music they are hearing to the same room. All of them know it to be true and decide to ignore it and get back to their lives as "humans" as the Cylon fleet apreaches their position.

I really enjoyed season 3 of Battlestar Galactica. When the humans decided to stay on the planet they find, with Baltar as president, last season I was hoping it would not be for very long. Even though it was only four episodes the effects of their time on New Caprica can be seen throughout the whole season. The season starts with the humans fighting the Cylons and with the entire Cylon fleet about to attack them, but it ends with them them much closer to Earth.. I'm really looking forward to next season and hopefully some more progress on the trek to Earth.

Joost Review

I got an invitation to join the Joost beta the other day. For those of you not familiar, Joost is a basically a form of online television. Instead of having normal channels like CBS, ABC, and NBC. The channels are specific to the content on them. For example, there is a Green Day channel, an Indy Car channel, and a Gaming channel. Currently there are about 25 channels to choose from. The interface is simple and clean and easy to navigate. In addition to the standard channel flipping methods you can also search for shows by name or type. Joost allows for full screen viewing or putting it in a window so I can easily watch have shows going while I do other stuff on my computer. The full screen is nice for putting it on my TV.

I did notice a little stuttering at first on a couple shows, but generally the video looks really great, even at full screen. I need to try it out somewhere with a slower connection speed to see how it does with the buffering and streaming, but so far it has always performed well. The Joost website lists that the application downloads approximately 320Mb of data an hour and uploads about 105MB an hour. So, a broadband connection is definitely required. Joost is peer-to-peer based so instead of pulling all of the video from a central server it speeds up the process by allowing videos to be pulled form other Joost locations that are closer to you.

One thing that would be nice to see added is a way to sort shows by genre. For example, lets say I want to see all of the different sporting shows across all of the channels; currently I would either need to scroll through channels by name or search for sports. The searching does work well, but to be able to see different genres by themselves would be nice.

Joost is currently in talks with quite a few different networks so I expect the amount of content to grow quite quickly as if becomes more popular. The social aspects of Joost are what really set it apart from other online video sources. The ability to chat with people watching the same show I am is great. I anticipate that once out of beta Joost will be very popular and will attract a lot of attention.

Joost is free to use and watch because it is ad based, but so far I've only seen a couple of ads. Far less than if I were watching normal television. I know some people will be turned off by this, but I'd rather have Joost be free with ads than have to pay for it.



[Update] Wow. There are a lot of people interested in getting a Joost Invite. I still have plenty more to send so keep the requests coming. Due to the number of invite requests I've been getting I've made a change to comment moderation. I will be approving comments as I send the invites for them. Now, when you see your comment is posted I will have also sent you the invite for Joost as well. Hope that makes it a little easier for everyone. I'll continue to try and send out Joost Invites as soon as I receive the requests.

How To Use A Remote 101

Normally I’m not one to read the NY Times. I generally get my daily news from sites like Digg, Engadget, and Joystiq. Yet, when I saw an article titled “Viewers Fast-Forwarding Past Ads? Not Always” it caught my eye. My friends can tell you that I am a TiVo Whore. I’ve been using it long enough now that I would rather not watch TV than have to watch it with commercials. The SuperBowl is my one exception to that and if you read my previous post you already know my thoughts on that.

According to a survey by Nielsen, DVR owners watch 40 percent of commercials that they could skip over. Are these people crazy? I can understand watching sporting events live. Personally, I prefer to let them start recording for 20 or 30 minutes and then start watching the game so I can fast forward through commercials, but there are cases where watching the game live is better. Other than sporting events, I don’t see any reason to watch normal TV live. Maybe someone can tell me another reason, but I just can’t think of one that explains why 4 out of 10 people who could be fast forwarding commercials are not.

As I think about it now I wonder if there polling methods were flawed. I know half a dozen other people who have a TiVo or DVR from their cable company. None of them watch commercials. Most of them only watch a few TV shows and all of those they record and watch at a later date. The sports fans all let the game start recording and then start watching a bit later. None of them watch commercials. None of them were surveyed for this research either.

Assuming their statistics are correct who are these people who are watching commercials instead of fast forwarding through them? I have finally thought of one reason why people might not be fast forwarding through commercials. They don’t know how. Maybe these people signed up for digital cable to go with their new HDTVs they got for Christmas/SuperBowl and it came with a built in DVR. These are probably the same people who do not know how to set the time on their VCRs. They have the new electronic toys to keep up with their neighbors, but don’t take the time to learn how they actually work. I’m thinking I could make a lot of money starting a class that teaches them how to use their remote controls. So, if you know anyone who watches commercials instead of fast forwarding through them please shoot me an email or leave me a comment so I can get in touch with them about my new class: How To Use A Remote 101.